‘Tricot,’ she said.

‘Tricot, like knitting?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And your first name?’

‘Madeleine.’

So I was in the presence of Madeleine Tricot. I felt doubtful for a few seconds. It was not a name I could ever have invented. I have sometimes spent whole weeks trying to think up a character’s name, convinced as I was that the sound of a name has an influence on a person’s fate. It even helped me to understand certain temperaments. A Nathalie could never act like a Sabine. With every name I invented, I would weigh up the pros and cons. And now, suddenly, without any procrastination, I found myself with Madeleine Tricot. That’s one advantage of reality: it saves time.

On the other hand, there is a fairly sizeable disadvantage: the lack of any alternative. I’d already written a novel about a grandmother and the issues of ageing. Was I going to be stuck with this theme again? It didn’t really excite me, but I had to accept all the consequences of my plan. What would be the point if I started to sidestep reality? After thinking about it, I decided that it wasn’t merely coincidence that I had met Madeleine: once writers hit on a favourite theme, they are doomed to keep writing about it for life.¹

1. 1. Then again, walking the streets of Paris’s seventeenth arrondissement at ten in the morning, I was hardly likely to bump into a go-go dancer.

5

Madeleine had lived in the neighbourhood for forty-two years. It was possible I’d already seen her around, although her face didn’t seem familiar. I was relatively new to the area, but I did spend hours walking the streets to help myself think. I was one of those novelists for whom writing is like annexing a territory.

Madeleine must know about the lives of lots of people around here, I thought. She must have seen children grow up and neighbours die; she must be aware of the ghosts of old bookshops hiding behind shiny new supermarkets. There is undoubtedly a certain pleasure to be found in spending your whole life in the same place. What struck me as a geographical prison was a world of familiar landmarks, protective and comforting. My excessive love of escape often led me to move house (I was also the kind of person who never took off their coat in a restaurant). The truth was that I preferred to leave behind the scenes of my past, whereas Madeleine was constantly surrounded by memories. When she walked past her daughters’ school, she perhaps saw them running towards her again, throwing their arms around her neck and shouting ‘Maman!’

While we weren’t yet close, our discussion had got off to a good start. We conversed so effortlessly that, after a few minutes, it seemed to me that we had both forgotten the context of our meeting. This is confirmation of a simple fact: people like talking about themselves. A human being is a walking autobiographical novel. I sensed that Madeleine was thrilled by the idea someone might be interested in her. So where would we start? I didn’t want to tell her which memories to unwrap first. In the end she asked: ‘Should I tell you about my childhood?’